... and they lived happily ever after?

Of all the people that I’ve ever had the displeasure of sharing a house with, I think my brother probably takes the prize for Least Pleasing Housemate.

It’s been six years since he’s moved out. But I can still smell the pong of his sweaty sneakers in the hall like it was yesterday. I can still hear him snorting and grunting in the lavatory every time I pass the door. I can still see his trail of breadcrumbs leading from the kitchen to the living room.

It’s no fun trying to live with a guy. He could be your brother, your cousin or your father or your boyfriend — it makes no difference. Boys will boys, and they will leave the toilet seat up.

Which brings me to cohabitation: the fine art of a couple sleeping, eating, and ‘pushing’ together in the hope of making their relationship more meaningful… and to test the waters of marriage.

We are largely divided over whether cohabitation is a good thing or not. According to Pamela Smock, author of Cohabitation in the United States — Annual Review of Sociology, 55-percent of different-sex cohabitors get married within five years of moving in together. On the other hand, research by Zheng Wu, a sociologist at the University of Victoria suggests that women who live with a man prior to marriage are 80-percent more likely to divorce or separate than are women who have never entered into a live-in situation.

But that’s not stopping us from doing it anyway. Since 1960, the rate of cohabitation has increased 1,000-percent. This trend is understandable, given the many advantages it supposedly offers: shared housing expenses. Shared household chores. Backrubs on demand. Loving company whenever you need it.

But what about when you don’t need it?

When so wrong seems so right

“I thought the time was perfect for us to move in together,” says Cheryl, a 27-year-old restaurant manageress. We worked in the same place (he was a bartender), had the same friends, liked the same things and loved being together… it just seemed so logical.”

As it turned out, things couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Cheryl’s boyfriend was used to seeing her immaculately groomed at work, and was surprised at the flaws he saw underneath all her foundation. She was used to seeing his swaggering, confident walk behind the bar, and didn’t like the way he slept in until noon everyday. But in the end, what broke them up was their lack of personal space — ‘me’ time when they could be alone with their own thoughts.

“It got to a point when I didn’t want to see him anymore,” says Cheryl. “Sometimes, when I was by myself, he would come into the room and try to undress me — I hated it when that happened. I was just not in the mood, and he couldn’t see it.”

Was Cheryl’s idea of cohabitating a bad idea? Dr Dennis W. Neder, author of Being a Man in a Woman’s World doesn’t think so… provided both parties know what their expectations are.

“Until you actually live with someone else, you can’t possibly know what it’s going to be like.” argues Neder. “How unfair for two people to be thrust into a live-in situation without knowing what they are in for. Once the marriage is absolute, that’s a very bad time to find out about how your partner lives! I soundly believe that any couple that wants to be married had better live together first.”

However, it can happen too soon — something posh writers and relationship gurus are calling Premature Cohabitation. But how can you tell? To start with, there are some things you ought to ask yourselves before taking the plunge… including why you’re doing it.

“Before you move in together, it’s best if you’re very clear about what you expect,” say Marshall Miller and Dorian Solot, founders of the Alternatives to Marriage Project and authors of Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living Together as an Unmarried Couple. “Ask yourself: Do you both definitely plan to get married? Do neither of you want to get married? Do you see cohabitation as a trial that will help you decide? You should both have a clear sense of what moving in together means to each of you.”

The toughest part is keeping your expectations reasonable. Living together will not magically transform today’s Marriage-Just-Ain’t-For-Me guy into tomorrow’s Groom-To-Be. And sharing a kitchen and bedroom will not sweeten a volatile relationship.

“Live together because your relationship is going well, not to try to make it better,” advise Miller and Solot.

The couple also recommends signing a Cohabitation Agreement, which works like a prenuptial agreement and helps make break-ups easier. And if things aren’t going well, you should never, never marry your cohabiting partner because you hope marriage will change her.

“If you don’t like what you see in an unmarried significant other, you definitely won’t like it in a spouse,” says Solot.

Hard habits to break

Men all have a bad habit… or six. But these are highly-personal habits, which no one else knows about (or so we hope). Nose-picking. Belching. Farting. If neither his mother’s nagging nor his grandmother’s switch could break his filthy habits, what makes you think you can?

There are some things you can only learn about people after having lived with them over an extended period of time. How long that period is depends on how long we can put up an act.

It boils down to the masks we put on every day before we step out of our homes. The way we behave with everyone else — including lifelong buddies, parents and colleagues — is different from the way we behave when we are alone. Throughout the day, we constantly ask ourselves questions like “What does this person think of me? How can I make this guy like me? Will she be angry if I do this?” We even change our behaviour, if we think it will benefit us.

But we cannot wear our mask indefinitely. Sooner or later, it will start to peel, revealing the soft flesh inside… along with all the other stuff we’d rather not have the rest of the world know about. Mood swings. Mad fits of violence. Hysterical crying.

Although discovering new things about each other was exciting at the beginning, Cheryl grew tired of putting on a show for her ex-boyfriend.

“I just couldn’t be myself anymore,” she complains. “If I put curlers in my hair, he would laugh. If I ate a whole tub of ice-cream by myself, he’d tell our friends. And if I bought a new dress, he would criticise the way I spent my money.”

Of course, this is the primary reason that women cohabit in the first place: you get to learn intimate details about your guy that you would never otherwise guess; and then later, you can decide whether or not you want to spend the rest of your life with him. People call it avoiding divorce, although conservative traditionalists call it avoiding marriage. Either way, you get a pretty good taste of what’s in store should you decide to settle down permanently with him.

This means that there is a very real danger that cohabitation can shatter the perfect picture the two of you have painted of your relationship. What you have to consider is, are you ready to take that risk?

How come, how long?

So, how long after you start dating should you try this cohabitation thing? A month? Three? Six?

Much longer, I’m afraid: everyone agrees you should only start talking about it at least 18-months after your first kiss… and only if you’re very serious about the relationship. You have to get over the initial rush of the relationship, when the sex is hot and the loving is better. It’s called the Infatuation Stage (you know you’re in it if you still think your partner’s perfect), when your heart is too flighty and your head is too silly for you to make serious decisions like this.

“David and I met at a party in our first semester. We hit off so well, we moved in together before the month was out!” says Rita, who is still studying. “Looking back, I know that was where I went wrong — I hardly knew him.”

It is during the next stage of the relationship that the question of cohabitating should first be brought up. This is when the flowers come less regularly and entertainment is mostly movies, Scrabble and late Friday nights. Birthday presents are still great, but there is no sizzling tingle up your spine when he kisses you anymore. You have settled into a pleasant rhythm you like and know well, and you think that you could get used to having that rhythm around you all the time — “Should we move in together?” is a question either party can pop.

However, even if you have been dating for five years and already (think) you know all there is to know about it each other, the time may still not be right.

“If your partner is unsure about living together and needs convincing, then your relationship is just not ready for it,” says Miller.

“When Andrew asked me, I was stunned,” says Melissa, 29. “But the thought was so exciting that I said Yes — it was almost like agreeing to marry him!”

It wasn’t marriage, though. Not yet, anyway, although it is rumoured that wedding bells may be ringing in her direction very soon. She has lived with Andrew for three years, and has no regrets.

“We’ve learned a lot about each other. There was a tough patch which we thought we’d never get through, but we made amends and adjusted our habits to respect each other,” Melissa says. “I think the most important thing we learned is to give each other our space.”

Top 10 Reasons Why Unmarried Couples Aren’t Married… Yet

1. Living together as a step between dating and marriage
2. The time isn’t right
3. Don’t want to become a wife (or husband)
4. To avoid divorce
5. To stay away from City Hall
6. Financial reasons
7. Religious reasons
8. Marriage doesn’t represent the relationship
9. They can’t
10. No compelling reason to marry

Source: Unmarried to Each Other by authors Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller.

Men want commitment, too



Tell no secrets.

You’ve dropped some hints — about having babies, about how nice it would be to have a place of your own, about growing old — but he’s resolutely refrained from asking The Big Question. Finally you ask yourself: “Why is he do scared of commitment?”

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Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but maybe it’s just that he scared of commitment with you. Men look forward to having kids of their own and growing old with someone they love as much as women do (after a certain age, admittedly). And, like women, they want it to be with the right person. However, unlike women, men are never going to say Yes just because “because their heart tells them so”.  They need more than a flutter in their stomachs to commit to anything.





Men fear rejection, too

Beneath their crusty, shiny exterior, men are really all softies squirming with insecurity. They are terrified of being rejected; they actually hurt more deeply than women do because of the need to keep up that ridiculous macho charade. Women that tease men will often find themselves hated by the opposite sex, because men will come to view them as “risky” — the chance of such a woman rejecting you out of pure fun is too high.

This guy obviously can't handle rejection.

”Playing hard to get,” is another ploy that men do not take kindly to. Although it may seem to you the best way of keeping him interested, all you’re really doing is showing him that you can play games with his heart. Unless you’ve starred in America’s Top Models, you may want to reconsider this strategy — most men would gladly take their chances elsewhere.

Men want to be the biggest, fastest, bestest ever



The man any decent boy dreams of being one day.

Yes, men all seem to have a fixation for the longest, biggest and fastest everything. This is because of that little boy inside every man, with his huge insecurities, just dying to Be The Best He Can Be. He wants to a super-duper-achiever, and gain recognition for it from his Mom, his girlfriend, his kids, his next-door neighbour.

When making a decision, a man will choose the the path that displays him in the most powerful light. If it’s the wrong choice, he finds himself in a pickle: being in that powerful light means he cannot show weakness – he cannot admit that he was wrong. So, he shows anger instead. It lets him mask his other emotions, and preserve the sanctity of Little Boy with the Big Problems inside. My advice is this: let him have his way. Deep down, he knows his mistake anyway.

Men like gutsy women

In this age of liberated females, nothing turns a man on more than to have a woman call his mobile phone and ask him to dinner. Better yet, to have her buy him that dinner, and then take him home to her place to watch a movie she chooses.

Men are tired of always having to be the one to make the first move (and risk rejection). Men are tired of having to remember to pick their underwear up off the floor, in case they might have a visitor to bring home. A woman who takes the initiative is, to be a frank, a welcome change.

Men don’t like make-up

This is a guy, believe it or not.

Is Britney really that good looking? No. As a woman, you know that underneath all that make-up, she’s just another plain-old Caucasian girl with freckles and whiteheads. But why do men seem to ogle over her so? It must be the make-up.

Now, this is a little difficult to explain. Although men like looking at women that use their foundation, mascara, rouge, eye-liner and lipstick plus gloss, they don’t fancy being in the company of one. The moment they see you up close, they start analysing your make-up, searching for flaws you might be trying to hide. It detracts from your natural beauty, which is what they’re really interested in. (Hey, are you still going to have all that make-up on in the morning?).





Men don’t like being changed

One of men’s greatest fears is not being loved for who they are. They are terrified of being loved for who they could be, which is not quite the same. In fact, it’s an insult. You may be certain that he would look terrific in a tailored suit, but you’re never going to make him think so. And even if you do, you’ll never make him feel more comfortable in an Armani than a pair of jeans.

If you start making suggestions about the way a man should dress or behave, he will grow suspicious of you, and why you’re with him in the first place. If you fell in love with him in jeans, leave him in jeans. Changing him threatens the Little Boy. He’ll begin to wonder if he ought to get out of jeans just to keep you loving him – now, that would be a terrible pity, wouldn’t it?

Men dislike “The Spot”



What happens to a man when you put him on The Spot.

Sometimes, it’s because you catch him eyeing a woman with to-die-for legs at the mall. You ask him if he thinks the woman pretty (he says No). You ask him if you look fat (he says No). You ask him if your hair seems limp (again, he says No). You ask him several more questions, leading him to The Spot. He writhes, he squirms, but there’s no way out. Then it comes: “What can I do to make you more attracted to me?”

He could have been honest and said the woman was a real knock-out, but that would have hurt you (see #7). And you knew he was lying… else you wouldn’t have asked him all those questions. But you couldn’t it leave it at that, could you? Oh, no. You had to put him on The Spot.

Please don’t. Ever.

Men lie with good intentions, too

The “Am I fat? — No, you’re not” conundrum has been bandied around for decades without us having to go over it again. Yes, men will lie to get themselves out of a tight spot. But that’s not the only reason.

Men are sensitive to other people’s needs and wants, too. And, they will lie to make sure they don’t hurt your feelings — or anyone else’s — even if it’s at their expense. A man will not “say it to your face” if he can help it, and would rather suffer a date with the girl of his nightmares than hurt her.




Men are more loyal than you think





The boyfriend who tried, but could not resist.

Men have a terrible reputation to live up to, when you think about it. They’re supposed to be zipper-free, virginity-conquering bigamists, with an appetite for variety and spice surpassed only by their appetite for fried chicken and football. But most of them are nothing at all like that… and not surprisingly, either.

Almost all men are loyal husbands and boyfriends. Unless you see lipstick on his collar and his belt buckle, he probably really was just having a drink with his boss after work. Men really are not as sexually charged as women think, and are more concerned about work and their career than sex.

Men are not all the same

Men don’t ALL like football, they don’t ALL enjoy farting and they don’t ALL think about sex ALL the time. In fact, men stopped being like each other — hell, they made a conscious effort to do so — several decades ago, when the first books that analysed the male psyche appeared. Since then, they’ve tried very hard to differentiate themselves from one another in a gazillion different ways. So, don’t compare them with each other, alright?

Got marriage?

When Clarice turned 30, she realised something that most of us would only laugh off: she still wasn’t married.

She’d lived as a party animal all her life with her girlfriends, a sisterhood formed when they were still in college. Late nights, shopping sprees and group holidays was how they used to spend their weekends together. But over the years, their girls’ nights out lost one member after another. First there were five, then there were four, then there were three… until Clarice found herself spending her thirtieth birthday with her boyfriend and his buddies instead of hers. All her friends had husbands, and some had toddlers on their laps. They all had other priorities.

“When I saw our table piled high with jugs of beer instead of frozen margaritas, I knew something was not quite right with the picture,” says Clarice, a marketing executive. “All my friends were married, and all to boyfriends whom they’d only known for two or three years. And here was Keith, my boyfriend of nearly ten years, who had never even proposed.”

While many women would have been content to wait a little longer for the Magic Moment, Clarice wasn’t. By her next birthday, she had married Keith, had moved in with him, and was signing the documents for their first house.

But how did she do it?

“Oh, I threatened him,” smiles Clarice. “I told him that he either loves me enough to commit, or he doesn’t — there were no two ways about it.”

Keith was a bit taken aback, of course. He still wasn’t a millionaire (he used to joke about getting rich before getting married), he couldn’t cook, and he was a sloth. Living with his parents, he hadn’t even learned to do his own laundry yet.

“But I loved her enough to want to change all that,” says 35-year-old Keith, a junior architect. “When I woke up the morning after Clarice’s birthday bash, I had a beautiful hangover. That was when she attacked,” he grins.

Clarice recalls that Keith was all stutter and groan that day, as she harangued him about settling down and put him on guilt trips that were amplified by his headache.

“I just felt that he needed a little nudge in the right direction, you know?” says Clarice. “I knew he loved me enough to marry me. He just hadn’t thought of asking.”

Digging for gold

The National Marriage Project, a research centre at Rutgers University in New Jersey, U.S., calls it the Readiness Gap: women and men may start out equally concerned about their careers and financial well-being, but women will shift their focus towards marriage and families sooner. That’s why men have traditionally been older than the women they date and marry. Also, the closer their age gap, the longer it takes for the man to commit.

But whereas Clarice was able to turn her boyfriend into her husband overnight, the going was much tougher for Ada. She tried the direct approach, too. But it backfired.

“He said he loved me so much that he would rather let me go than to marry a loser like him,” she says. “It was bullshit, of course — I knew he loved me. But what he said also told me that he wasn’t ready yet.

So Ada decided to warm him up to the idea. She dropped hints at every opportunity. When people asked them when they were going to tie the knot, she’d pipe up and say, “As soon as David asks me,” (much to his disconcertion). She would talk about her dream wedding with him and openly discuss who they should and should not invite. She also started looking into jewellery shop windows — something she had never done before — forcing him to participate in choosing their wedding rings.

“Pretty soon, David was talking about it, too,” smiles Ada. “He might not have been as excited as me about it, but at least he wasn’t as scared of it anymore.

David laughs: “She’s a sneaky one, she is. But it’s true. After talking about it so much, and watching so many movies (apparently, Ada rented all the soppy marriage stories she could get her hands on, including all-time favourite Four Weddings and a Funeral), I was more receptive to the idea of taking the vows.”

But yet he didn’t ask her — he didn’t know how to!

“I wanted it to be special. Not the clichéd, down-on-bended-knee proposal you see in cheesy commercials. It had to be unexpected. I wanted her to remember the moment forever.”

David trawled the Internet, looking for creative ways to propose, but none appealed to him. Weeks went by. Meanwhile, Ada was getting impatient.

“A year later and he still hadn’t proposed,” Ada remembers. “I was very frustrated. I loved him, but I was starting to think that I’d have to leave him if he didn’t hurry up.”

Luckily for David, Ada was struck by inspiration when she heard that Britney Spears did the proposing with Kevin Federline and got away with it.

“I did my own research and found out that 97-percent of men think its okay for women to propose,” says Ada. “Also, it was 2004, and women are supposed to be allowed to change the rules and do the proposing in leap years.”

All of this was heartening to Ada, and although her mother disagreed, she bought their engagement rings herself. And in July of that year, she popped the Big Question to David.

“I got down on my knee, and I proposed to him,” smirks Ada. “Although we were alone, I’d never felt so embarrassed in my life. The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that he was probably twice as ashamed as I was.”

When enough is enough

Sadly, some men cannot be pushed. Lina, a financial executive, had been dating Alan for nearly eight years. The question of marriage, she says, came up once or twice but never led anywhere — they were trapped in a beautiful, loyal relationship that just could not seem to take its final steps on its own.

“I was getting older,” says Lina. “I was going on thirty-one; he was the same age as me. But we all know that women feel the years more keenly than men, and I was scared.”

Her fears were understandable. Lina’s older sister had dated the same man for fifteen years before he dumped her for younger woman (she insists on calling her a girl). When she looked in the mirror, she saw a thirty-nine year-old has-been with bad skin and a flagging social life. Lina didn’t want it to end that way with Brian. So she sat down to have The Talk with him, to tell her how she felt. He took it badly.

“He said that he did want to marry me, but only when he was ready,” Lina recalls. “He wanted to buy a house and finish the installments on his car first — but that would take three years!”

Even so, Lina says that she would have agreed had Brian not made a crucial mistake: he got defensive, and accused her of trying to ‘trap’ him into marriage. That made her realise that it had nothing to do with the car or house or bank account. It was him.

“He was just making excuses,” Lina says. “It hurt, because you expect your partner — especially one that has been with you for so long — to love you enough to do anything with you. But Brian didn’t.”

And so Lina ended the relationship. Brian was crushed, but left in a huff, his ego too bruised for apologies. Although he came back with a ring some weeks later, begging to be given the chance to propose and to marry her, Lina stuck with her decision.

“Isn’t it scary how someone could change his mind so easily over something as serious as marriage?” says Lina. “I almost accepted. But then I imagined him making the same split-second decision to have an affair or to leave me, and that settled it.”

Lina is now thirty-two and back on the dating scene. But she’s taking things very differently now. She knows what she’s looking for, and she’s not wasting time with men who are not looking for the same thing.

“My sister waited too long,” says Lina. “Us women cannot do that, you know. We have a shelf life — if you pass it by, you end up in the personals column of The Sunday Mail.”

Calling the shots

Women certainly don’t have to and shouldn’t wait for the man to propose if they want to marry. As Ada said, 97-percent of men these days think its okay for a woman to do the proposing. It may be bold, but being bold is a real turn-on for guys. It does beg the question, though: why aren’t more women doing it?

Rejection is highest on the list for Debra, a 27-year-old web designer. “If I spot even a hint of doubt in his reply, whether Yes or not, I would be mortified,” she says. “It would be devastating to the relationship. Perhaps that’s why most women still prefer the status quo… even with the terrible risk of being dumped after your Use By Date.”

Ada agrees with Debra in spite of having taken that risk: “To be turned down that way is something that only a guy should ever have to go through, not a woman,” she says. “I know I would never have recovered if David said No. I only asked was because I knew he’d say Yes”

Will you boyfriend say yes to you? Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

The marrying kind of man

According to research by the National Marriage Project, the typical man of marriage:

• Grew up with both biological parents, and whose father’s played an active role in his life (63%).
• Made the decision to wed freely (not under pressure) and for his own reasons (81%). Only 15-percent of married men polled agree with the statement “You got married sooner than you wanted because your wife was pushing for it.” However, only 35-percent agree that “you got married because you were ready to have children.”
• Specifically looked for someone who will be a good mother (75%).
• Is more religiously active than the unmarried men. Nearly half say that they go to religious services several times a month, versus less than a quarter of the unmarrieds.
• Is happier being married than being single (94%). Married men agree that marriage improved their lives in two areas: sex and money. 73- percent say that their sex life got better after getting married, and 68-percent say that marriage has helped them become more financially stable.
• Does not see children as the central purpose of marriage (70%) — about the only common opinion he shares with unmarried men. However, 70-percent of married men hold more child-centric lives, and they are also more likely to want more than one child.
• Ironically, he also disapproves of unwed childbearing. Only 47-percent of married men agree that “It’s okay for a woman to have a child on her own if she can afford it,” compared to 63-percent of unmarried men. Married men are also more likely to say that “People should marry and not just live together if they have children” (64% v. 53%).

TYPE 1: The Trumpet Blower

Photo credit: numberstumper. Click on image to visit.

Typically sounds like…: I’m a cool dude with a sense of casual easiness. I’m very funny, with a dash of wicked humour at times. Extremely suave if I do say so myself.

Now, that’s not so bad, is it? Nothing wrong with hiding your flaws with a cool, composed confidence. Type 1 seems to be just what he says, but you should be careful for that very reason: no man would ever claim to be ‘extremely suave’ unless he is targetting gullible 18-22-year olds. Hey, would you ever advertise yourself as ‘drop-dead gorgeous’?

Advice: Type 1 has a dark side to him, and you should tread carefully. He could be anything from a serial killer to a serial dater. He knows it. He’s just hoping that you don’t know it.

TYPE 2: The Hunter

Typically sounds like…: Me? I’m just looking for a bit of ‘fun’ (hint hint). As long as you’re discreet, anything can happen, right? …It would be even better if you yourself are committed but just want to have some fun on the side.

That introduction could pass off as a harmless joke. Except that this excerpt came from a married man of forty, who stated his preferred match as a lady “between 20-28”. Type 2 advertisements start with hints, but usually end up pretty bluntly. Thankfully, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what he’s after.

Advice: Always read between the lines when answering the personals. Sometimes, men too can mean ‘yes’ even when they say ‘no’.

TYPE 3: The Guesser

Typically sounds like…: I guess that due to my job I don’t have time to search for my other half. I love to go to the movies, but I’m always alone. I guess I would love to find someone to share my life with. I’m lonely, I guess.

Type 3 doesn’t really know what he’s after, and can be a source of bitter disappointment. The trouble with him is that he hasn’t even decided for himself whether he wants someone or not. It could be that he’s been hurt many times before and is still not sure whether or not he should start looking for someone new. Or, he knows he needs someone, but doesn’t have a clue as to what sort of person she should be. With this type, the phone calls taper off, your email goes unanswered and he eventually drops off the face of the planet.

Advice: On any given day, the fickle man is far worse to know than the fickle woman. Contact him of you wish, but don’t get your hopes up too high and always be ready for an inconclusive end.

TYPE 4: The Honest Blunt

Typically sounds like…: Very open minded by nature, wild & naughty at times. 165 cm, 55++ kg, average height but slightly under weight for a guy. God has given me a gift: I look much younger than my age. See it to believe it. I’m looking for a friend … but who would know what would happen after a week, a month, a year? Nothing fat and ugly, please….

No doubt about it, Type 4 is as honest as the day is long. But although this virtue is highly-prized, I don’t know if you’d appreciate his candour for long. You can depend on Type 4 to be conscientious in his communication with you, but he’s not for the faint hearted — expect him to point out your flaws to you, as though you weren’t already aware of them yourself. Although not completely agreeable, he is at least reliable.

Advice: Try to appreciate Type 4’s candidness. Otherwise, look for someone more subtle.

TYPE 5: The Desperado

Typically sounds like…: Interests are travel, meeting people, outdoor sports, listening to music, nature, clubbing, shopping, water sports, billiards, cars, computers, internet, dancing, football, gym, aerobics, hiking, motor racing, mountain climbing, cinema, etc….

Type 5 seems to be interested in an awful lot of things, but how does anyone find that kind of time these days? They don’t. Type 5 is afraid of narrowing his appeal too much by being in any way specific about what his interests are (online searches often match people according to interests). He is desperate for any company, no matter what they like doing or where they are from.

Of course, a person’s marketability should hardly be determined by what they enjoy doing. But consider this: would you really hook up with someone who forces himself to enjoy the polka as much as you just because he can’t find anyone else?

Advice: Keep an eye on Type 5, and maybe later when he’s a little more experienced with the personals, he’ll be able to tell you more about what he likes.

TYPE 6: The Best Friend

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Typically sounds like…: If you have questions on computers, ask me. I am quite an “ugly” man, so if you’re looking for someone who’s macho or handsome, turn the page. I may be boring, but I am very caring. I want someone to chit-chat with between 20-32, loves IT, and cannot be too ugly or too pretty!

Type 6 won’t do well as a life-time companion perhaps, but you can’t deny his sincerity. A man who steps forward and declares himself ugly faces getting no responses to his ad whatsoever, what more requesting that girls who reply not be too pretty, either.

With this in mind, you can be pretty sure that Type 6 has no ulterior motives, and probably just likes to chat a lot. He balances his honesty with reality. Type 6 fits the best friend role very well. He has no false hopes about getting any further in a relationship, and, best of all, is content with that. Count on him to never let you down when you need someone.

Advice: Treat him kindly. If he is as ugly as he says he is, don’t tell him so. Pay him the due respect that he gives you.

TYPE 7: The Plainly Spoken

Typically sounds like…: I am looking for a like-minded woman to have an affair with. I love to experiment, if you know what I mean. No pretenders, please.

Bravo. Type 7 doesn’t mince his words. Married, bored and not even willing to go through the normal procedure of ‘let’s meet first’ before cutting to the chase, he uses the personals not to fill anyone’s life with meaning, but only to fulfill his own perverted desires. There is no deciphering with Type 7. Everyone can figure him out… or so it seems. Just what does he mean by ‘experiment’, exactly?

Advice: If you’re gung-ho about having affairs with married men and would like to expand your sexual horizons too, then have fun. Others – even the curious – should stay clear.

TYPE 8: The D.O.M. (Dirty Old Man)

Typically sounds like…: 54, Single; am looking for an athletic, intelligent, woman (25-35) who is self-reliant and who can deal with a travel schedule which can be hectic (USA, Europe, or around Asia).

See it? The man is looking for women half his own age! Type 8 is choosy about who he wants in life, and has obviously settled his heart on remaining single for the rest of his life. He wants no life-partner; only temporary maidens whom he hopes to attract with his money and opportunity for travel! A self-centred male chauvinist, Type 8 only wants women in their prime — not before, nor after.

Advice: Get a life. No one needs to take up with Type 8.

TYPE 9:  The Forgotten Deal

Typically sounds like…: Looking for someone (35-45) with an open heart, has natural beauty without makeup, not too demanding, sincere in her relationships, likes to help people and knows how to cook.

Type 9 is usually a forgotten 60-year-old who has just woken up and discovered that he is no longer the youthful bull of his prime. Uh oh. Time to find a woman to take care of him in his old age. Either that, or it’s a sad case of his ex-wife being dead or having just left him. Either way, you wonder why.

Advice: You shouldn’t really have too much to worry about with Type 9. He knows his time is past. It’s up to you.

TYPE 10: The Real Deal

Typically sounds like…: I am a businessman; I wear glasses. I am romantic, understanding, and love ladies who are fair. I love meeting friends and outdoor activities. I’m looking for someone loving, romantic, understanding, charming, clean and tidy. Homely and sporting, thinks of family up-keeping. Looking for marriage-minded ladies for long term relationship.

This is it. Type 10 has all the qualities of a genuine, candid and worthwhile personal advertisement. He is both honest about his looks and what he’s looking for. He knows what he likes, and what he doesn’t. Therefore, you can take everything in between as the truth so far as he knows it.

Advice: Type 10 is the ideal balance between honesty of self and sincerity in expectation. Ending on the note that he does, don’t waste his time unless you’re serious about it, too.

Photo credit: nicubunu. Click image to visit photographer.

Let me present you with a scenario: You come home one evening after a full day of shopping with the girls, and catch your man red-handed on the PC, surfing pornographic sites. There’s a picture of disproportionate blonde in a contorted sexual position on the screen, and he smiles sheepishly at you as his face goes from red to purple.

What do you do?

Well, naturally your first reaction would be to scream in bloodthirsty fury at his cyber-infidelity. (By now he is apologising profusely; his flustered eyes darting between your shopping bags and the PC screen, as he struggles to shut down his companion on his recent lustful adventure).

Then maybe you retreat into an abyss of misery (he has genuine remorse in his voice right now, and probably has a few sparkles forming in his eyes as the full realisation of what has happened hits him). Finally, you settle into a pensive state of depression that you’re determined to remain in until you feel much better, which of course you never do. (The ultimate guilt trip – he’ll be quite sure to never do it again, at least not in this lifetime).

But why did he do it exactly? When you asked him (read: SCREAMED at him) during your first reaction, he probably answered but you weren’t listening, having other thoughts on your mind like whether the scissors in the kitchen drawer were sharp enough to do a little hasty surgery on your dearly-beloved’s most-precious of organs. You probably asked him again a little later, when you began to descend into that abyss, and again he probably answered, but again it got lost in translation. By the time you were really ready to get an answer, he had probably given up trying to explain. Allow me.

Yes, men like porn

It’s true: I won’t deny that us men are big fans of pornography, and that we have all gone onto the Net to search for nude pictures of our fantasy women at least once. But believe me, we do get bored. Quick. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say that once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Women in the nude all look the same (no offence).

It doesn’t matter if it’s Cindi Margolis (Guiness’s Most Downloaded Woman) or Audrey Hepburn. After about three months of trying to find the ultimate in porn, we realise that there is no gratification to be found in the whole hyped-up medium anyway. They’re all homogenous products of clever photography and Photoshop.

But there is something else that is readily available on the Net: information. This is where a lot of us end up going to when it comes to fulfilling our sexual notions. Believe it or not, some of are actually interested in satisfying our partners in bed!

Erotic stories abound on the Net, and, in true trashy-novel tradition, most of them are written by women. There is no way on earth you would ever find us holding a Mills & Boon novel in our hands during our time on this planet. Still, we figure that if women write these fantasies, and other women read them, doesn’t it make sense that they are pretty much fantasies of women the world over? So, by us men reading these stories, we’re able to act out these fantasies for our partners!

Another example: There are thousands of guides out there for women to get better sex from their men. ‘How to Increase His Endurance’; ‘Getting That Multiple Orgasm’; ‘Make Him Your Slave’… and many, many more. These articles were written for women. They’re full of advice on how women can manipulate their partners so that they get better sex. It makes sense, then, that us guys should read these same articles and find out what we’re supposed to do. Manipulate us, please!

Men aren’t exactly ‘open’ when it comes to talking about our sexual needs. And despite women getting some great sex advice from those romance novels, we don’t see much of it rubbing off. So we carry on with our usual routine between the sheets, wishing we could play a little ‘cat-and-mouse’ around the kitchen. Women, it seems, do the same… but neither of us knows it. If only we did, we’d be able to have our very own episode of Tom & Jerry.

A friend of mine once caught his wife red-handed for surfing pornographic sites (I believe she was perusing the anatomy of Hugh Grant at the time; or, at least, his lookalike), and he told me that after they got over the first few minutes of shock, complete speechlessness and overall staggered heartbeats, they understood each other much better in bed. They opened up to each other, because each realised that the other was just as naughty. They spoke openly of what they would like to do to each other one day, and made plans in the general direction of having wild, unbridled sex. Most of the details are unprintable.

From good sex to great sex

My experience on the Net has been a wholesome one. I started out like many: finding the ‘juiciest’ sites where I could ogle at women for free, and looking up sources for getting quality porn at dirt-cheap rates. But I soon grew bored. In fact, in less than three weeks after getting on the Web, I had already outgrown this lusty habit, and had moved on to more productive surfing (read: erotic stories). Of course, at the time, I had no sex life.

Photo credit: motleypixel. Click to visit photographer.

But when I settled down, I was frightened. The age-old adage that sex becomes a walk-in-the-park after marriage rang in my ears. Where it was once ‘hot’, ‘steamy’, and ‘wild’, after marriage it becomes ‘nice’, ‘good’ and ‘wonderful’. I was determined to not let this happen, but I didn’t know what to do. We had great communication, but I had lousy intuition and she had an even worse imagination. The signs of doom were on the wall.

If you watched the uncensored version of What Women Want starring Mel Gibson, you’ll understand what I mean. We know you have likes and dislikes in bed, and we wish we knew what they were. We’d be more than willing to accommodate you every need, I assure you. But Mel Gibson’s ‘sixth sense’ for hearing the woman’s thoughts (in the bedroom scene of the paranoid coffee-girl) in that movie is fictional. My bedroom isn’t.

So I did what I found a lot of other men in similar positions doing: I got the advice that was meant for women, reverse engineered it, and put it into practice. Whilst my wife subscribed to women’s magazines in her quest for an imagination, I started surfing the Net during my lunch break to develop an artificial ‘sixth sense’. I devoured everything I got my eyeballs on from ‘Oral Pleasure For Women’ to ‘Kama Sutra Defined’. I invested in some lingerie, both for her and for me (I never knew that my wearing a G-string could make a woman so ‘happy’). I looked up some fantasies that other women have, and figured out how I could act them out with my dearly beloved. I learnt all sorts of new tricks and, thankfully, most of them have worked.

She caught me red-handed on the Net gawking at a doctored image of Catherine Zeta-Jones once. But after I explained what I was really surfing for she smiled in anticipation. These days, we sometimes even surf together, searching far and wide for tried and true techniques and postures that guarantee us a fulfilling sex life. We have since learned to open up a lot more and right now, we use all the words in our considerably vulgar vocabulary on each other in bed, knowing full well what they really mean and enjoying every minute of it.

So the next time you catch your man eyeballing Britney in a two-piece bikini, smile, pull up a chair, and join him. You’ll see what I mean.

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Photo credit: banjo d. Click image to visit photographer.

Close your eyes and think back to your childhood. You might remember your mother fussing over you the time you scraped your knee in a nasty tumble. You might recall your father urging you to the finish line on Sports Day. You might even have vivid memories of your birthday party when you turned the (then) grand age of twelve, your mom and dad singing along with your friends.

Now, take away one of your parents from those memories, and see what you have left.

For most of us, parents are a part of life. They are entwined with our earliest memories, good or bad. It is easy to take something as fundamental to life as our parents for granted. Like the air we breathe, haven’t they always been there? (Whether you wanted them there or not is beside the point).

Yet not all of us have had both parents around all the time. Some divorces mean that one parent has to stay away, although he or she can come to visit. But for many, their childhood memories only have one parent in them. Their albums may have yellowed photographs of the other, and somewhere in the back of their minds, they have hazy recollections of the missing mother or father’s smiling face. But that’s all they have.

As a child, separation must be a difficult concept to grasp — why can’t my parents just love each other? And what about me! But, as an adult with your own fair share of failed relationships, things take a different perspective.

Three women whose parents’ divorced under varying circumstances agreed to share their experiences of their childhood, and what their opinions are of their parents today. Now that they’re all grown up, perhaps what they have to say may strike a chord close to the heart of you, Dear Reader, should you be thinking about separation. All identities have been concealed to avoid any embarrassment.

CASE #1: Choosing the distance

For Catherine, now 35, the announcement of her parents’ divorce when she was was more a relief than a shock. From as far back as she can remember, they had bitter arguments which frequently ended up with blows being exchanged.

“My mother used to throw plates at him,” she says. “There was a lot of broken crockery in the kitchen in those days!”

But a cloud passes over her face as she recalls her mother’s bruised face, slumped against the bathroom wall, crying. Catherine was eight when her mother sat her down and told her she would be leaving her father. Catherine cried, but in her heart, she was glad; glad that there would not be anymore fights.

“My mother told me she would come to visit me every week,” Catherine says. But she doesn’t remember ever seeing her again.

Catherine’s mother gave up custody to her husband, and was free to visit her anytime she wanted. But she didn’t. Catherine’s father remarried, and moved away. She grew up with her grandmother, meeting him about twice a year.

“Maybe my mother was too afraid of getting beaten up again,” Catherine muses.

“At first, I remember being sad. And then, angry. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her at least once. I hated her for a long time afterwards. My mother failed as a parent; my father, too, for ‘chasing’ her away. But lately, I’ve come to forgive them both. It’s too burdensome carrying that hatred around.”

Catherine now has two children of her own — a boy, 8; and a girl, 6. She is divorced, but maintains a cordial relationship with the father of her children. He comes and visits whenever he can.

“I don’t want them growing up thinking he is a bad man,” she says. “My ex-husband and I may have failed each other, but that does not mean we have to fail our children.”

CASE #2: Remaining close

Photo credit: whatmegsaid. Click image to visit photographer.

Susan, 30, has fonder memories of growing up, even though her parents divorced when she was twelve. She cannot rightly say what the reasons for their separation was (“Probably something like ‘irreconcilable differences’,” says Susan), but in the big picture, it did not really matter.

“They used to argue a lot… but that’s the hallmark of all divorces, isn’t it?” says Susan.

Although Susan does say she would have liked it if they stayed together, she knows now that it was better that they didn’t. No child likes growing up with fighting parents. Hers were separated, but her father came to visit her almost every day. She stayed with her mother alone for the rest of her growing years, but never moved too far away from where her father lived.

“He would come round on his bicycle just to see me,” Susan giggles. “He’d ask me how my day at school was and sometimes take me to the shop for ice-cream.”

Yet Susan’s own relationships have never ended up with marriage, something which she suspects may have more to do with her own insecurities than with the men she has met. Subconsciously, she believes she may never make that commitment.

“I lived with my Mummy alone for many years. I know a woman can make it alone, without a man. Perhaps that is why I’m not desperate, even though I know my biological clock is ticking,” reflects Susan.

Her parents remain on good terms, and still see each other on birthdays and other family occassions.

“I don’t think I was abandoned,” says Susan. “I love both my parents very much, and I think that what they did was best for everyone.”

CASE #3: Lost and found

Sylvia’s story may sound painful to some, but none more so that she. Her parents married as rebels of their families. Her father was a door-to-door salesman, and being the possessive type (his wife was a sort of beauty queen), insisted that her mother stay at home. After two years of a chaotic and often violent marriage, she left home, leaving Sylvia behind.

But not without a fight. She tried to get Sylvia to stay with her, but her ex-husband scared her witless. His brothers threatened her with violence, forcing her to give up the chase. Alone, divorced (this was the early 1970s, mind you) and with a family that barely supported her cause, she fled and has remained as far away from him as possible.

“I don’t know whether I blame my father or my mother for what happened,” says Sylvia, now 33-years old. “He said she was a flirt; she said he was violent.”

Her father remarried several years later, and her growing years were not pretty. He was a womaniser and an alcoholic, both traits of which Sylvia came to understand very early in life. His second wife — barely eight years older than Sylvia herself — was as abusive as she was sneaky. As her stepmother, she made Sylvia’s life a misery for as long as she remained in school.

“I think I hated my real mother for abandoning me most during those years, when my stepmother made my life a living hell,” whispers Sylvia.

Twenty years after leaving her, Sylvia’s mother sent her a present in secret on her wedding day. Three years later, Sylvia was divorced. She had no children.

Then, out of the blue, Sylvia’s mother called her office to speak to her. Sylvia breaks into tears as she recalls the day she first heard her mother’s voice.

“I didn’t know what to think or feel,” recalls Sylvia. “I felt angry, happy and sad all at the same time. I felt like a baby, and wanted so much to tell her of the nights I spent crying, alone, by the window, when Daddy was out getting drunk.” Sylvia says.

But she didn’t say any of those things. Instead, she put up a brave front. She figured that her mother’s phone call took a lot of courage, so Sylvia made sure she said all the right things: “Yes, the gold bangle on her wedding day was lovely,” (it didn’t fit); “My stepmother is not too bad,” (she was horrible); “My ex-husband was a bad man,” (he is a good guy, and they are still friends).

Several phone calls later, they agreed to meet.

“She said on a Wednesday that we’d meet on Friday for dinner, without the knowledge of HER husband or HER (other) daughter,” says Sylvia. “For a split second, I felt special; our relationship would be our secret.”

But her mother chickened out and stood Sylvia up. What hurt Sylvia most was that during all the conversations they had, it was all about her mother’s daughter, her mother’s husband, her mother’s S-curved hair, her mother’s beatings from Sylvia’s father. It was all about her, her, her.

“Occasionally, when her conscience kicked in, she asked about me,” says Sylvia. “If I got beaten as a child, if I smoked or if I was mad at her.”

That was the last time Sylvia heard from her, five years ago. She is not thinking about remarrying.